One day I found I could no longer transfer files between my iPhone and iTunes.

Normal procedure would be to connect the phone to my laptop using a USB cable, and then in iTunes go into the Apps part of my phone, scroll down to File Sharing, and I’d get a list on the left of apps which had file sharing capabilities. Then I could click on an app, and in the section on the right I’d get a list of all the files which I could save from that app.

For some reason this stopped working – I have no idea why – I didn’t change any options myself. I’d go into the apps screen, see the apps on the left, but clicking on them no longer brought up any files on the right. And the “File Sharing” title turned to “File Sharing is Off”.

Solution? Not sure why, but turning wifi off on my phone seemed to make it work again. Turn wifi back on, files disappear. Turn wifi off, files come back.

Unicode Character Problem

I found today that Chrome was refusing to display certain unicode characters when they appeared on a web page. Instead it would display a little place-holder box. I had a unicode font installed on the computer which should have let Chrome display the characters, and in fact if I copied and pasted the place-holder boxes from the web page into the address bar, they would appear there as actual characters. But not on the web page itself. Trying in Firefox, they would display correctly on the page.

Why Won’t Chrome Display Unicode Characters

When Chrome comes across a character which doesn’t appear in the font used to render the page it checks a list of other fonts to see if any of them have that character. When it still can’t find it, it displays the place-holder box. Firefox on the other hand checks a list of other fonts and has its own internal set to check if it still can’t find it. Although I had a font installed on my system, it wasn’t one of the ones on the list that Chrome checked.

Solution To Display Unicode Characters In Chrome

The answer was annoyingly easy after going crazy wondering why it wasn’t working; install a different font which definitely is on Chrome’s list. In this case, “Code2000”, which is origianally by James Kass. Install the font, re-open Chrome and the characters appear on the web page as they’re supposed to.

This game requires a large group of people, divided into two factions; the innocent and the mafia. The innocents should outnumber the mafia at the beginning of the game, although the exact numbers for each team do not matter. It is recommended to have the mafia number a third of the innocents, although there should be at minimum two. There should also be a “moderator” who runs the game.

The game has two phases; night and day. During “night” all players shut their eyes and stand still. The moderator then asks the mafia to open their eyes and indicate a target to kill by pointing at her. Without speaking, the mafia members must come to a unanimous decision on which innocent to kill, and when they are agreed the moderator instructs them to close their eyes, and the game phases moves on to “day”.

At the beginning of the “day”, the moderator announces which innocent was killed the previous night. That player must then sit out from the game, and not attempt to influence it as it continues. The remaining players must then discuss amongst themselves who they think the mafia members are. At any point any player may accuse another of being a mafioso, and players then vote whether or not to lynch that person. The majority vote wins, and if the player is lynched then the moderator announces whether they were in fact mafia or innocent and the game phase turns to night again. If the majority vote against lynching, the phase continues until a player is lynched.

The phases then continue in this fashion until all the mafia have been lynched, or until the mafia outnumber the remaining innocents.

All players need a pen and some paper. The object of the game is to form a short (funny) story by each player writing down the following things:

Adjective for man

Man’s name

Adjective for woman

Woman’s name

Where they met

He wore

She wore

He said to her

She said to him

The consequence was… (a description of what happened after)

What the world said

Once all players have written down the first thing (adjective for a man) they fold their paper over to obscure their answer, and then pass the paper to the next player. They then write the second thing on the new paper the receive, fold that over and pass it on and so forth until all 11 things are written down. The papers are then unfolded to read the stories.

Before the game begins, one person is selected to be the murderer, unknown to any of the other players. The murderer’s job is to kill as many of the other players as possible by making direct eye contact and then winking at them. A player who is winked at must wait five seconds, and then die a dramatic and noticeable death.

This can be played in a circle, or walking around a room. There are two variations for catching the murderer. First anyone may guess at who it is, by saying “I accuse” but not naming anyone. For the murderer to be caught a second player needs to support the first by also saying “I accuse” and again naming no names. The two accusers, without conferring with one another, must then point at the same time to the person they suspect. If they both point to the player who is the murderer, he is caught. If they point to the wrong person, or they both point to different people, they lose and must now both die themselves.

Sitting in a circle it may be difficult for the murderer to do her job without getting caught early on as all the other players are watching for her. The second variation for catching the murder has a detective chosen as well. All players know who the detective is, and only the detective may guess at who the murderer is.

Each player has a post-it note stuck to their forehead with the name of a famous person or character written upon it. They must ask questions of the others players in order to deduce who they are, but the others may only answer “yes” or “no”.